Where to even start with Ares' outrageous plan? Dragging everyone around him into his cultivation conundrum was highly impolite! Extremely rude! It was common courtesy to suffer your tribulations in private, away from other people so as not to involve them without their permission, unless it was unavoidable. It's not like having other people around would even help get through the tribulation and so it only provided more targets for the chaos to pick meaningless fights with. Though, in a situation like this, weaponizing the tribulation was actually rather smart, an inspiring idea. Ares wasn't the first person to do this, it was a somewhat well known trick outside the Blade barrier that had seen niche use, but it wasn't a common strategy for a variety of reasons that made consistency and reliability both impossible. Typically, you would only ever do this to someone, or a group, you didn't like. In that case, they wouldn't like you either. There was no reason for the victims of the wrath of the tribulation not to seek out the person undergoing the trial and attack them. Surviving the tribulation was a matter that required great concentration to keep cultivating through the worst of it and holding off attackers at the same time was implausible.
When cultivating, it was impossible to move around excessively to fight or chant arts as the distraction it caused was sufficient to cancel everything. If you stopped cultivating during a tribulation to defend yourself the tribulation would force an immense backlash so the risk was high and the ensuing damage atrocious, never mind the people still actively attacking you afterwards. Weaponizing a tribulation required a very specific set of circumstances, namely the person summoning either had to be completely invisible and undetectable or guarded perfectly during the process. To that end, Ares, by his lonesome, was smack bang in the middle of thousands of cultivators, and thus very visible, while attempting this madness. There was zero chance literally anyone here didn't assault him to stop this from getting out of hand and it wouldn't be difficult to just kick him out of his lotus position. When he was forcibly stopped, he would also inevitably suffer a hefty backlash and pay the price for this insane strategy. For what it was worth, this decision of his was so utterly mind-bending that he had at least another a few seconds to himself while people were coming to terms with the fact that somebody was even willing to try this in public in the first place. The shock of this stupidity had rendered his would be aggressors stunned basically.
But the conversation needed to be reminded a bit because the real starting point of this discussion was the fact that somebody in sensory enhancement was having a tribulation at all! Tribulations weren't known to happen before the transition realm, and even then only in extremely rare circumstances as that was still considered unusually early, so what exactly was all this about?! Something like this was a historical first. It wasn't even a major tribulation across realms, that would make it somewhat more understandable as it would then only technically be a bloodline awakening tribulation, but a minor tribulation in sensory enhancement?! What did that mean exactly? Tribulations were based on the latent talent and innate advantages of the sufferer... This implied the existence of a once in an eternity prodigy because it had quite literally never happened across, perhaps, around a billion years of existence if not more. It was unknown how long exactly this world had been around for, only maybe Astraeus could answer that, but there wasn't a single record of a tribulation occurring before transition realm ever, such a thing defied common sense. It was previously assumed the body just couldn't muster the conditions required for one that early. Transition was the first important, major realm for a reason; mana, magical power, and physical strength all shot up exponentially for the first time in a cultivator and so the shock to the system that followed, combined with the new power accessible by the body, was what typically caused the push-back. How much might was this kid capable of generating if he was suffering tribulations at sensory enhancement?!
It was worth reconsidering how much attention this strange kid was worth giving if he was going to be pulling stunts like this. How strong was he exactly that he was undergoing tribulation with such a low cultivation base!? There had to be a reason for it and whatever said reason was it remained true that Ares had to be far stronger than the average sensory enhancement cultivator for such a thing to even be feasible. the assumptions various experts here had about him were proven correct off the back of this alone. Even just surviving the tribulation, though, would be a nightmare so while it was impressive it was also incredibly risky and foolish to choose this place here and now. Ares hadn't just made enemies of everyone around him, there were plenty of glares directed right at him this very moment, but he'd also gotten on Gram's nerves by interrupting his performance earlier. Even if Ares had measures set up to defend himself in that lotus position against the rabble, Gram could not be ignored so easily. Having a low, unsuitable cultivation base, and having to deal with Gram was a recipe for disaster and yet Ares stayed steady on his course of action and showed no signs of slowing down...
Perhaps his confidence was soaring because the tribulation was shaping up to be something exceedingly monstrous. The amount of mana that gathered earlier was not trivial and the black cloud in the sky had rapidly spread until the entire courtyard was darkened by its looming shadow. Whatever came next was not going affect a small area and, if nothing else, the ten lanterns Ares needed to destroy would be obliterated in a mere moment. The question, though, was how many other competitors would he disqualify in the process by murdering them and kicking them out the Training Field with this method? How much destruction would his tribulation wreak after it was activated and in play? Would it even be possible to defend against it? How strong would i be exactly? All questions that needed to be answered but yet also questions nobody had a suitable answer for. They were hoping they'd never have to find out and somebody would interrupt Ares before things devolved beyond control.
Gram and Marlar looked to be speedy to get their lantern quota before anybody else. Ares, on the other hand, was taking the dominant approach and batting aside everyone else's efforts to reign supreme in the hunt for lanterns. Realistically, nobody here would be able to move the mountain that was his tribulation after it started because it was looking to be incredibly devastating if nobody intervened in he next few seconds. Sure they could just leave him alone, and then him and his tribulation would be transported away from this place once he destroyed his ten lanterns, but until that point there was a very real risk of his tribulation catching everyone up in a hazardous whirlwind of death and obliteration. It's not like Ares could control precisely where his tribulation struck so if it knocked out thousands of competitors before finally battering the lanterns then obviously such an outcome would be undesirable enough to do something about it now. Why wait and risk Ares' tribulation going on a killing spree when the man responsible could just be attacked? Common etiquette to not disturb a cultivator breaking through a stage of cultivation was not a good enough excuse and if that was what Ares was relying on he had another thing coming.
Interestingly, though, as one impatient woman moved to attack him, and prevent the brewing catastrophe, another was minding her own business and acting on the assumption that this situation would not change. This was the mystery / cloaked woman that couldn't be identified before, the one at the fifth stage of bloodline awakening. She was mumbling a long chant under her hood and mana was swirling obediently around her but it took its sweet time. To anyone who paid attention, it was possible to tell she was imbuing whatever her next magic was with a tracking feature. She could fire the art now without it but patience was a virtue and she was expecting Ares' tribulation to block her magic if she was too hasty. At that point, it was worth delaying the magic while adding bells and whistles to her art to guarantee the destruction of lanterns afterwards when the coast was clear. She was the only notable figure taking the 'wait for an opportune moment' approach and she didn't seem to think there was any coming up right now despite the woman trying to knock Ares off balance for the sake of the greater good of everyone here.
In other words, the mystery woman didn't seem to think Ares could be beaten by that cultivator ambushing him from behind even though he was seated, with his eyes closed, and vulnerable in the middle of a demanding cultivation session. That was a wild claim to make, even if only through her actions and not one spoken verbally, because the implication was either that Ares was impossibly powerful, and could defend himself without lifting a finger... Or the woman was laughably weak. There was nobody here who was 'weak', at least in the normal sense as comparatively there was an argument to be made about the difference between the top and bottom contenders, so what was this cloaked woman thinking exactly? Regardless, she was placing a great deal of faith in Ares to maintain this tribulation otherwise she'd have to cancel her magic on the spot and cast something different. As everybody else was already firing their arts there was a very real chance she'd be knocked out of the tryouts, unable to break ten lanterns in time, all because of Ares' inability to follow through on his own reckless plan. Luckily for the mystery woman, whether she knew it intuitively or just took a really lucky guess, she'd placed her bet on a winning horse with fantastic odds.
Ares wasn't as unaware of the woman sneaking up behind him as he looked to an untrained eye. His divine sense was fully operational so his firmly closed eyes meant nothing. Granted that wasn't where all the woman's confidence came from; the real issue here, that everybody was in agreement on, was that Ares was unable to block anything that came his way. Unless he gave up on his cultivation he couldn't respond to threats... That was how it should have been but there was something everyone gathered here today didn't know... Or, rather, they did know, they'd all heard of it, but they'd forgotten about it because of how infrequently this unnatural and unusual complication popped up... Ares watched as the woman swung her leg and launched a horizontal, sweeping kick at the back of his head, In response, he leaned forward, ducking under it, used one foot to stand firmly while still low to the ground, and donkey kicked the woman right in her jaw. Time seemed to pause as Ares' sole connected with a dull thud and remained planted in the woman's head until she collapsed with her eyes rolled back. She was knocked out in one clean blow, which was worthy of commendation because forcibly fainting someone with a single kick required solid technique, but the real issue here was that Ares was still cultivating! Logically, after moving about that like that, his cultivation progress should have been halted dead in its tracks.
How the hell was it possible to fight and cultivate at the same time!?
This was not the outcome anyone expected or could have ever reasonably predicted. Even if Ares managed to deal with his aggressors it wasn't ever supposed to be in this way. Maybe a runic trap he set earlier? A delayed art activation that was superbly well timed? A treasure that guarded him by putting up an impenetrable barrier until he was done cultivating? Any of these options would have been acceptable but just straight up personally beating the would-be assassin with his own two hands... Or foot in this case...
"Passive cultivation?"
It was unknown which person muttered that aloud but it sparked a wave of small, shocked grunts and groans. People who pursued passive cultivation were often frowned upon as idiots for being irresponsible and moronic because it just wasn't possible to achieve the end goal. You could learn to cultivate in awkward places, and move around while cultivating, but actual permanent passive cultivation at all times was a pipe dream and trying to learn it was a waste of time and talent. The secondary benefits to learning passive cultivation, like what Ares had just done, was seen as mostly not worth the effort it took to get to that stage in the first place and there were better things to practice and develop like pressure enhancement. Fighting while cultivating was a neat party trick that was fun to show off as a gag at best but served little practical purpose. Cultivators could live for hundreds of thousands of years so learning to cultivate for an extra three minutes during an average length fight was the very definition of pointless. Focus on the fight, win it, and then cultivate afterwards! Sure some fights between higher domain cultivators could occasionally take multiple years, if they really dragged it on, but it wasn't anywhere near as common as regular fights and so... What was the point?!
Well... Ares had just proved there was at least one use case for it that fell outside expected norms and served a decently valuable purpose... Sort of. It still required an entire tribulation to be useful so there was a very clear drawback to this strategy that made it hard to utilise... Basically ever... Nobody wanted to admit that passive cultivation had scored a win but it was hard to disagree with the results. Ares was still able to keep channeling his tribulation which would eventually become a raging storm of human devastation and lantern mutilation. In a way, what he was doing could be considered an art chant instead of a cultivation session which was a unique way of combining two different troublesome problems to create a solution to both. Tribulations weren't functional as weapons because the victim couldn't move about freely and passive cultivation rarely provided any actual combat benefit of any kind. Mixing them like this really made the outcome far greater than the sum of its parts. It was bizarre to witness but the truth of the matter was that Ares was still standing and his tribulation was about to start very soon. Whether he could be dealt with in time before it kicked off now was questionable. Everybody saw that kick earlier and it was pretty impeccable which gave to understand that Ares was not a person who could be bullied in a matter of seconds.
Beating Ares before the tribulation let loose wasn't going to happen so it was perhaps better to run away as far as possible and escape the area he was rapidly becoming king of the hill in. It was annoying, Ares was located almost right in the centre of the allotted area for the competition, but backing up and away from him was the most logical option available. Any brave soul who tried to charge in would only be doing others a favour, by attempting to end the tribulation on their behalf, and even then they might not survive if they were even a millisecond late... So who would dare risk it? Plus Ares was fighting back now so it was well and truly a doomed endeavour. Nobody here was that selfless so everybody backed away silently and chose to wait out the storm while hoping it didn't affect them. The worst part was that this was easily avoidable if everyone hadn't been stunned stupid by the outrageousness of Ares' actions at the very start. If they ganged up on him rapidly he would have been forced to take drastic measures through which he might not have been able to cling to his tribulation. It was a bold strategy that took advantage of the stupor it created and, now, it was time to unleash the pent up energy.
The gigantic dark cloud crackled with golden lightning and it seemed as though this minor tribulation would have shades of destruction present within it. Up until now the tribulations had mostly been environmental affairs with little ties to the destruction pillar but, as Ares neared his major tribulation, there was now a slight deviation. Though this was a minor tribulation it was safe to say it was going to pack power equivalent to a normal cultivator's major tribulation, maybe even more given the way things were shaping up, and so an unpredictable golden lightning surge was about to descend. For those around Ares it was better to ignore him and pray nothing struck them while charging up an art for afterwards. It turned out the cloaked woman's methodology was supreme but she was the only with head start and benefitting from being proactive. So long as the tribulation didn't hover on over to her, and pelt her with nature's wrath, she would be the next person to destroy ten lanterns without a shadow of a doubt... Which was enough to drive Gram mad with anger and rage. He still hadn't gotten his last lantern because the tribulation was simply too turbulent to launch any attacks past. He'd been robbed and could no longer play it off as an intended setback. This would mar his reputation somewhat and a lot of the journalists here were petty vultures who cared more about an interesting scoop than supporting him specifically. They would gladly turn their fangs on him and deride him, throw him under the bus with glee, over this newcomer who one-upped him and knowing that was in store for him down the line was infuriating. Gram would not forget this slight! Alas, there was nothing to do be done now as the golden lightning onslaught had just begun and so everyone had more pressing issues than entertaining some princely grudge.
CRACKLE
A zigzagging golden light homed in on Ares and struck him in the head as he took up a seated position once more. He was able to brush it off with pressure but this was still just the start and so he didn't get complacent thinking it would be this easy all the way through. Also, the lightning he deflected scorched a nearby rock instead, turning it into ashes, so the fact that this was still the early, weak stages was rather worrying. Anyone still within a certain area around Ares quickly shuffled away even if it meant interrupting their own arts because this danger zone was far larger than they initially assumed it would be.
CRACKLE
This time, three bolts shot through the sky, taking erratic and seemingly random paths down towards the earth. Sometimes they even zapped off completely sideways for a brief moment and slashed a lantern or two in half, almost like they'd been attracted by a lightning rod, before resuming their original journey straight at Ares. He'd now destroyed about four lanterns and this was a sight that made the others thankful. The sooner he broke those targets, and was sent to the victor's area away from here, the sooner everyone could breathe a sigh of relief and go back to competing in a more normal fashion. Ares had turned this event upside down and on its head but maybe it would be over soon? Unfortunately, however, it seemed like that last series of three lighting strikes, that had crashed into Ares and been absorbed and redistributed by his Zephyr's Grounding rune, were not an indicator of how things would progress going forward.
The next time the blackened cloud unleashed lightning there were ten total strikes and each of them crash landed directly down without taking any horizontal detours. They were faster than the eye could follow. To make matters worse they didn't even aim for Ares, they just blitzed his rough area and kicked up the stones on the floor and scattered them like tiny bullets. Not one lantern was destroyed but plenty of cultivators were now either riddled with misshapen holes, thanks to the stones flung rapidly at them, or sizzled and burnt to a crips by the errant lighting that was beginning to spread out unpredictably. If this kept up, soon this fencing would become a cage of lightning and a hellhole trap that everyone was stuck in. There was no way to know who would suffer at the hands of this tribulation next because the strikes went wherever they felt like it and there was no warning signs of any kind.
CRACKLECRACKLE
The next wave unintentionally struck down another three lanterns but a few hundred cultivators were also wiped out as the severity of the lightning strikes was such that they were causing pillars of gold to erupt wherever they struck. Annihilation operated on energy sources and so supercharging it via lightning was inevitably going to result in potent explosions that caused many to perish in a blaze of golden glory. Ares was lost somewhere in the middle of this glittering hellscape and the testing ground became a weird visual cluster and dichotomy of colour as the dark clouds up above were like a lid containing the golden rampage below.
Friends standing right beside one another lost sight of each other and it very rapidly became every man for himself. The goal was simply to survive until Ares was ultimately made to get lost and relocate, after breaking his ten targets, but when that would be exactly was anyone's guess. It was impossible to tell how much time had passed but the cloud refused to let up for at least a minute straight and the lightning was only getting worse with every second. It was as the damnable cloud had grown a touch of sentience and realised it could prolong everyone's agony, and keep testing their endurance, if it simply avoided the lanterns so it almost purposefully didn't ravage the tenth one. The cultivators down below, who were still actually capable of viewing the situation outside the golden curtains wrapped around them, were cursing at the stupid cloud and even occasionally chucking arts at it or giving it the middle finger out of resentment. It didn't make the annoying thing go away but giving it a piece of their mind, as they were continually zapped on the arms and legs incessantly, was somewhat calming at least.
The culprit of this all, Ares, was impossible to locate because this was derivative of his magic after all. He could sense whenever anyone go close to him amidst the golden haze and it was a walk in the park to avoid them all by skirting around their limited vision. Ares could even go around assassinating people if he felt the urge to but, for the sake of everyone's sanity, once he'd had his fun, he shot out a simple pressure bullet and broke the tenth lantern personally. It took a few seconds for the golden tide to withdraw, and the cloud had to pause for a split second to rediscover its target an chase him over to a distant hill, but the ravaged area was soon revealed in full and many were left speechless. An entire layer of the ground had been ripped off at bare minimum, usually three to four layers gone was common, and there were plenty of deep craters in the fenced area that were hard to see the bottom of unless peered in directly from the edge. Even outside the fenced region there were still a few indented parts of ground so the range of this tribulation had been absurd.
The real shocker, metaphorically speaking and thankfully not literally anymore, was the sheer number of people who were booted out of this trial after being killed in cold blood by the tribulation. There were thousands of cultivators to start with and now only a mere few couple hundred remained. Technically this was a good thing for those still left, as their competition had thinned considerably and so the number of people who made it through to the next round would be higher on average due to less lantern sharing, but it was still a spooky sight to see thousands of people disappear like ghosts in such a short time frame. The idle chatter had dropped by a metric ton and the area was borderline silent again which heavily contrasted with the raging storm from earlier. There was no way of stopping the tribulation that just happened so if this had been a real battle there would have been some unrivalled carnage and bloodshed... The person responsible was long gone but nobody lamented the loss of that mini demon's presence and they quickly regained their spirit and continued on with the trial; they still had to destroy their targets after all!... Though getting their thoughts straight, and memories of what took place not even ten seconds ago, out of their head was tough. The golden nightmare kept repeating itself over and over. Beyond that, though, this sensory enhancement brat, who somehow summoned such a thing, was extremely weird...